1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a screen information generation device that generates screen information indicating display content of a display device connected to a programmable controller that controls a control object device according to a chart program indicating the execution order of a plurality of steps each provided per operation unit.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, as an operation panel for operating a facility such as a machine tool, there is one provided with a display device that can be touch-operated by an operator (see, e.g. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-95081 (JP 2007-95081 A)). This display device is connected to a programmable controller configured to control the facility according to a control program created by a programmer, acquires various information from the programmable controller and displays such information.
Screens to be displayed on such a display device include an operating state display screen that displays an operating state of the facility, an abnormality display screen that displays abnormality content upon failure of the facility, an individual-manipulation screen for carrying out an individual manipulation that operates the facility per operation unit, and so on. These screens are each displayed based on, for example, screen information whose display content is defined by the programmer.
On the individual-manipulation screen among these screens, a plurality of operation buttons each provided per operation unit of the facility are displayed. When the operator touch-operates any one of these operation buttons, an operation of the operation unit corresponding to the touch-operated operation button is performed.
In recent years, a control program is created by a sequential function chart (SFC) that expresses an operation unit of a facility by a unit of step and indicates the execution order of a plurality of steps like a flowchart (see, e.g. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-97079 (JP 2008-97079 A)). A programming language in the form of such a sequential function chart is defined as the SFC language in the IEC61131-3 standard.
If the operating state display screen in the display device is displayed using a chart program described by the SFC language, it is possible to easily produce screen information for the operating state display screen and to simply display an operating state of the facility. Even in the case where the facility is stopped on the way due to some abnormality during an automatic operation, it is possible to easily grasp the situation.
Among the screens to be displayed on the display device, the individual-manipulation screen is particularly difficult to standardize and thus screen information thereof should be separately produced according to a specification of the facility, and therefore, its workload is large.